London.

Forget-me-Not; a Christmas, New Year's, and BirthDay Present, for 1830. Edited by Frederic Shoberl. R. Ackermann and Co. 12mo. Pp. 418. ACKERMANN is the Father of the Annuals, the leader of all that "gallant companie," the nucleus round which this Christmas constellation has gathered. We love the morning star, though it be lost in the blaze of noon,—we love the white crocus, though it disappear amid the glories of the riper year, we love the venerable master, though his pupil rise to more glaring renown, and in like manner ought we to love and admire that most tasteful and elegant of publishers, Mr R. Ackermann, who has originated a new series of works hitherto unknown in Great Britain—“ made to engage all hearts, and charm all eyes." Neither has our first and earliest annual faded away into comparative insignificance, before the surpassing splendour of those which have succeeded. On the contrary, it still fights a good fight, and maintains its place among the best with a becoming consciousness of its own dignity.

story we have no particulars, but during its narration the King and his courtiers were ready to burst with laughter, while the Earl never changed countenance, but related it with as much unconcern as if he were in the midst of his companions in his own country. When he had concluded, the King, anxious to divert the discourse from the unfortunate Bishop, thus made an object of ridicule, cautioned the Earl to be well advised whom he would choose for his counsellor, for that whoever he should be, he would have enough to do to defend him. Marry!' said Kildare, I can see no better man in England than your Majesty, and will choose no other. By St Brigid,' said the King, it was well chosen; for I thought your tale would not excuse your doings. Do you think I am a fool?' answered the Earl; 'no; I am indeed a man, both in the field and the town.' Henry laughed and said, A wiser man might have chosen worse.' A new accusation was now brought forward, that in one of his lawless excursions he had burned the cathedral of Cashel to the ground. Spare your evidence,' said Kildare I did set fire to the church, for I thought the Archbishop had been in it.' This singular simplicity in pleading a circumstance of aggravation as an apology for his offence, threw an air of ridicule on his prosecutors, which proved highly favourable to the cause of the accused; and when they concluded their charges by exclaiming passion- The volume for 1830 is now before us. It contains ately, All Ireland cannot govern this Earl! Well,' re- fourteen embellishments, which, though highly respectaplied the King, this Earl shall govern all Ireland.' ble, are on the whole surpassed by those of the Keepsake, AN AFFECTIONATE WIFE.-"On the 19th of May, 1596, the Souvenir, the Friendship's Offering, and the Amulet. Otterburn, a rebel chieftain, demanded a passage over Stradbally-bridge, which being considered as a challenge by They are arranged in the following order :—I. “The Cosby, he resolved to oppose the passage. He accordingly, Spanish Princess," painted by Wilkie at Madrid in 1828, accompanied by his eldest son Francis, who had lately mar- a fine picture, in so far as the artist is concerned ; but the ried a lady of the Hartpole family, took post with his kerns subject wants interest, seeing that the Princess is by no at the bridge, while Dorcas Sidney (Cosby's wife) and her means beautiful; and, moreover, we are not quite satisfied daughter-in-law seated themselves at a window of the ab- with the manner in which the work is engraved by R. bey to see the fight. The O'Mores soon advanced with Graves.-II. A “ Vignette Title," very tasteful and apgreat intrepidity, and were resisted with equal bravery, tillpropriate.-III. " Place de Jeanne D'Arc, Rouen," one Sir Alexander Cosby was slain, when his kerns instantly of those fine Continental street scenes, which Prout paints gave way; and Francis, attempting to escape, by leaping over the battlements of the bridge, was in the next moment so well, and Le Keux engraves so beautifully.—IV. “ The shot dead. You might expect that the ladies at the window Flower Girl of Savoy," a sweet picture, by a French artist, now became frantic with grief at the death of their hus- though we think the flower girl looks a little too much as bands. But no such thing; the widow of Francis turned if she were a married woman; that is to say, scarcely to her mother-in-law, and said, with the greatest self-pos- young and happy enough.-V." The Land Storm," spisession, Remember, mother, that my father was shot before my husband, and, therefore, the latter became the legal rited, but rather clap-trappish, being too full of thunder possessor of the estate, and consequently I am entitled to and lightning, wind and rain.—VI. “The Exile," a scene my thirds or dowry.' by Stephanhoff, but not one of his best, the countenances being rather insipid, and the grouping and attitudes not such as to tell the story distinctly.-VII. " The Orphan Family," engraved by Davenport from a painting by Chisholme, and executed in a manner which reflects much credit upon both artists, the lights being very delicately managed, and the figures happily arranged and well conceived.-VIII. "The Tempting Moment," a humorous scene by Collins, representing boys stealing apples from the stall of an old lady who has fallen asleep, clever, but far inferior to Wilkie, and rather raggedly engraved by H. C. Shenton.-IX. "Undine," engraved from a spirited painting by Retzsch, illustrative of part of a romance by De La Motte Fouqué, and worthy of the artist, whose outline illustrations, both of the poets of his own country and of our Shakspeare, are now so well known and admired.-X. “Greenwich Hospital," a good view, from the Thames, of this noble national institution.-XI. "The Improvisatrice," from a painting by Bone, the to a caricature, not to be meant for a caricature, ever worst embellishment in the book, and the nearest thing seen, the female figure, intended for the Improvisatrice, looking much more like an old maid with a pain in her stomach, which she is in hopes a dose of salts she has recently taken may remove, than a being in the fervour of poetical composition. It surely must have cost "Delta" some sacrifice of his conscience to puff up the unhappy creature as he has done.-XII. "Death of the Dove," an interesting painting by Stewardson, excellently en graved by W. Finden.-XIII. “The Shipwreck," and XIV. "The Ghaut," both respectable.

THE EAGLE TURNED RESTAURATEUR." A tradition prevails, that when O'Sullivan was quitting his retreat in Glengarriff, he consigned the care of his wife and children to a faithful gossip named Gorrane M'Swiney, who had a but at the foot of the Eagle's precipice, which was so constructed as to elude the vigilance of the English scouts who day and night prowled about these mountains. A single salted salmon was all the provision which M'Swiney had for his honoured charge when they entered his hut, but his ingenuity is said to have devised extraordinary means for their future sustenance. Having perceived an eagle flying to her nest with a hare in her talons. he conceived a plan for supporting the family of his chief with the food intended for the young eaglets. He accordingly, on the following morning, accompanied by his son, a boy about fourteen years old, ascended the mountains, on the summit of which they took post, till they saw the old eagles fly off in pursuit of prey. The elder M'Swiney then tied a rope, made of the fibres of bog fir, round the waist and between the legs of his son, and lowered him down to the nest, where the youth tightened the necks of the young eaglets with straps which he had provided for the purpose, that they might swallow their food with difficulty. This being accomplished, he was safely drawn up, and the father and son kept their station on the top of the precipice, till they witnessed the return of the eagles-one with a rabbit, and the other with a grouse, in its talons. After they had again flown off, young M'Swiney descended a second time, and brought up the game, after having first gutted it, and left the entrails for the young eaglets. In this manner, we are informed, was the family of O'Sullivan supported, by their faithful guardian, during the period of their seclusion in this desolate part of the country."

We had occasion formerly to recommend the first series of these "True Stories," and we can now as conscientiously recommend the second.

The literary contents of the Forget-me-Not are neither greatly above nor below par. There are some very good prose tales, and some that are poor enough. We do not

set out.

A brief retrospect of what has been done towards per- this make-shift was Lehmann, latterly a major in the fecting the construction of maps, during the last century, service of Saxony, and director of the royal plan-chamber will clearly establish the assertion with which we have in Dresden. It is impossible to enter here into an histoThe earliest maps aspired to do little more than rical account of the progress of his invention ;-the result to give an approximating idea of the relative situations was this. A map is a representation, on a plane surface, and distances of several places. More accurate notions of of a portion of land, supposed to be extended horizontally the longitude and latitude, together with more accurate beneath the spectator. To a person so situated relatively means of ascertaining them, suggested the mode of pro- to the land itself, all those portions of the surface which jecting a sphere upon a plane surface, and thus of giving lay parallel to the horizontal line would appear in a strong greater accuracy to maps. The discovery of America, light; all those which, forming a declivity, deviated from which gave the first impulse in modern times to the more the horizontal line, and receded from the eye, would apgeneral study of geography, by turning the attention of pear in shade, and this shade would be more or less inEurope for a while almost exclusively to maritime enter- tense, in proportion to the angle which the line of decliprises, was the cause that marine charts were more vity formed with the horizontal line. Upon these data speedily brought to a degree of perfection than the other Lehmann formed his system. All planes parallel to this class. Voyages were undertaken, observations and sound- horizontal line were left white;-all inclined planes, ings made, in all directions, in order to diminish, by the which formed a greater angle than 45 deg. with the hodiscovery and accurate notation of the hidden dangers of rizontal line, were viewed as perpendiculars, and marked the ocean, the perils of the mariner. In this manner, the as invisible, by a deep black line; all inclined planes outlines of all such countries as were bounded by the sea from 0 deg. to 45 deg. were denoted by different degrees came to be exactly pourtrayed. Their interior, however, of shade, beginning with a very slight admixture of black, and the relative situation of inland nations, were more deepening in proportion to the increase of the angle ;—all slovenly represented. There was no peril of life and limb the black strokes, by which the process of shading was to be incurred by ignorance in this respect, and men were effected, were drawn perpendicular to the horizontal line. content to rest upon the vague information to be attained By this means, a representation of the inequalities of a from casual and ignorant travellers. It did not even once country, upon a plane surface, was obtained, as exact as occur to them that more could be effected in land maps could be afforded by a model upon the same scale. The than had been in sea charts-the representation of dis- most splendid specimen of Lehmann's talents, and the tance and relative situation. They never entertained the most satisfactory proof of the practicability and sufficiency idea that any correcter notion of the inequalities of the of his system, is the map of the kingdom of Saxony, in surface could be conveyed otherwise than by a hierogly-eight large sheets, taken and projected by him, now enphic similar to that used to denote a town, placed as nearly as might be in the situation of any very conspicuous eminence. Such was the state of map-making all over Europe down to a comparatively late period.

graving at the royal plan-chamber of Dresden.

Lehmann's system has been adopted, with some slight modifications, by the engineers of Prussia and Austria. Of their alterations, we would say, that although perhaps A more extended and scientific inspection of the sur- less accurate, they are better adapted for speed in cases of face of the earth, has taught us that every portion of land emergency. The French, too, have adopted as much of rises gradually from the sea towards some central point-❘ the system as serves to give their maps a plausible apthat the mountains are not casual elevations rising in a pearance; but as far as we can judge from those we have chain, but partial terminations of this ascent-that they yet seen, they do not adhere to it with that strictness hang together in chains, united by the necessity of an which is necessary to ensure accuracy. Britain alone reinternal organization—and that the courses of rivers are mains behind. Her military engineers keep still by the determined by this uniform rising of the land, and the old system, which attempts to unite perspective with position and direction of the chains of mountains. A plan-drawing. Her surveyors are, in general, men of too knowledge of these peculiar features in every territory is confined and desultory education, to be masters of their of importance-to the landed proprietor, since upon the trade. Those few of them who have attempted to introelevation of his possessions depend the natural products duce something like the system of Lehmann, have too they are capable of yielding-to the merchant, that he confused a notion of the principles upon which it rests, to may know the easiest routes of travel-to the military do so to any purpose. The great misfortune with us is, Header, as upon a thorough acquaintance with his ground that no person of sufficient education has devoted himself his whole art depends-to the statesman, as it is his to to the construction of maps. With the exception of that wield the combined forces of all the three. All the de- constructed under the auspices of government (and which ails can be but imperfectly expressed in words, and it seems to have stuck in the middle) upon the trigonomeecame therefore an interesting problem, whether they trical survey, and perhaps one or two others of less immight not by some means or other be represented on portance, all our English maps are published as speculanaps. The first plan devised was rude enough. For tions by some one of the trade. Arrowsmith's are the he old isolated representatives of hills, were substituted best, and yet his are almost always copies, sometimes not inks of them placed in the direction of the principal very correct ones, of some Continental map. The excelhains of mountains. This was obviously very deficient. lency of their engraving is their chief recommendation. The general rise of land which determines the main diection of rivers, and the exposure of the soil, does not lways coincide exactly with the mountain ranges, and ould not therefore be expressed in this manner. Besides, was an attempt to unite two irreconcilable ways of reresenting an object. In a map, we are supposed to take bird's-eye view of the territory, but on this plan the specator was placed at the base of the hills, and made to look owards them. Still something was gained, and the inenuity of many engineers gave to this method a degree perfection, which, when we take into consideration its tter want of a systematic theory to direct it, is almost conceivable. The best maps executed in this manner re those constructed by order of the French government ring the war in Italy.

The first who substituted a more sufficient method for

The Bijou An Annual of Literature and the Arts.
London. William Pickering. 1830. 12mo. Pp. 288.

The first

THE two embellishments of greatest interest in this Annual (there are only nine altogether) are," Ada, a Portrait of a Young Lady," from a picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and "The Bagpiper," by Wilkie. is a perfect gem: it is the head of a little girl, five or six years old, who, if she be not Lord Byron's daughter, as the name leads us to hope, ought to be. We have seldom seen in a youthful face so much intelligence, combined with so much infantine simplicity and innocence. Lawrence never painted any thing but this, it would have been enough to hand his name down to posterity. As to Wilkie's "Bagpiper," it is of course inimitable. The

Had

weatherbeaten, strongly marked, acute, and truly High-
land countenance of the old man, playing one of the
favourite airs of his mountain land with all his fingers
and with all his soul, is full of the fire and energy of Wil-
kie's genius. His piper is just the man to march at the
head of the Forty-Second into the field of battle.
The
glory of old Scotland is in his heart, and he could move
up with his bagpipe to a serried phalanx of bayonets, or to
the mouth of a cannon. He is the chief's piper, and he
might almost be the chief himself. Many a bloody field,
and many a merry meeting, has he witnessed. There is
a history of something or other in every corner of his face.
He is like one of Sir Walter Scott's novels.-The portrait
of his Majesty, which serves as the frontispiece, does not
charm us much; and that of Mrs Arbuthnot, which, if
we mistake not, we have already seen in "La Belle As-
semblée," does not strike us as remarkably beautiful.
is odd, but it is nevertheless true, that celebrated beauties
never make very fine pictures. What can be more in-
sipid, for example, than the face of Mrs Agar Ellis in the
Keepsake? and this of Mrs Arbuthnot is just a very good
face for an English wife, without being in any way re-
markable. The truth is, that beauty does not agree with
the atmosphere and the habits of fashion, and that white
satin gowns, gold chains, and rings, have little or nothing
to do with it.

It

And little sprouts come by and by,
So die married men.

"But, ah! as thistles on the blast
From every garden bed are cast,
And fade on dreary wastes at last,
So die bachelors.

"Then, Thomas, change that grublike skin,
Your butterfly career begin,

And fly, and swear that 'tis a sin

To be a bachelor."

We have no room for further quotations. The volume is a handsome one; and we have no doubt will make a very satisfactory New Year's present.

Life on Board a Man-of-War; including a Full Account
of the Battle of Navarino. By a British Seaman.
Glasgow. Blackie, Fullarton, and Co. 1829. 8vo.
Pp. 194.

THOUGH in some parts a little coarse, this is, on the whole, a clever and amusing book. We have already given our readers an extract from some of the sheets which were sent to us as it was passing through the press, and now that we have the completed work before us, we propose adding, for their entertainment, one or two extracts more. The title-page describes very well the nature of the book, which is a good deal more than can be said for all title-pages. The author has evidently seen what he undertakes to speak about. Though of respectable parentage, he chose to run away when only a lad of seventeen, and voluntarily became a common seaman on board a man-of-war. Soon after his arrival at Liverpool, whither he had come by steam from Glasgow, he got himself entered for his Majesty's ship Genoa. He was, however, in the first place, along with a good number of other new hands, sent on board the Bittern sloop of war, in order to be broken into his new profession, before he went upon actual service. From the Bittern he was draughted to the brig Reynard, in which he made a cruise, at the end of which he came into Plymouth Sound, and was at

Few eminent names appear among the contributors to the Bijou; and, in looking over the contents, we confess this circumstance was to us quite refreshing. We have been dabbling so much in Annuals for the last two or three weeks, that we have got heartily tired of "eminent names.' Besides, we are satisfied that there are a great number of very clever people whom the world has never heard any thing about; and we flattered ourselves that the editor of the Bijou, trusting to his own judgment, was determined to prefer talented things from persons without a name, to stupid things from persons with a very large name. We hoped that he was, in this way, about to "give the world assurance" of an Annual that would stand ponderibus librata suis, and would trust to no fictitious celebrity whatever. We have been somewhat dis-length delivered over to the Genoa. In her he sailed, appointed, however; for, on perusing the book, we find, that instead of stupid things by well-known people, we are, for the most part, presented with stupid things from unknown people. Thus, we have "The Fisher's Wife, by a young Lady," ,"" Oswald and Leonora," "Lines written under a Butterfly painted in an Album," " Sonnet on Emigration," "" Sonnet by the Rev. Alexander Dyce," "Sonnet by Commander Hutchinson," " Sonnet by T. E. R.," "Sonnet by A B C," "Sonnet by X Y Z." This is rather tiresome. One might as soon expect to extract the ottar of roses out of a decoction of boiled pebbles, as poetry out of subjects like these. Nevertheless there are, of course, some things a good deal better, among which we class the following little poem :

BACHELORS.

"As lone clouds in autumn eves,

As a tree without its leaves,

As a shirt without its sleeves,
Such are bachelors.

"As syllabubs without a head,

As jokes not laugh'd at when they're said,
As cucumbers without a bed,
Such are bachelors.

"As creatures of another sphere,
As things that have no business here,
As inconsistencies, 'tis clear,

Such are bachelors.

"When, lo! as souls in fabled bowers,
As beings born for happier hours,
As butterflies on favour'd flowers,
Such are married men.

"These perform their functions high;
They bear their fruit and then they die,

under Captain Bathurst, first to Lisbon, then to Malta, and finally to Navarino, soon after which battle he quitted the service, and returned to Glasgow, his native city. Although, comparatively speaking, the writer is still but a young sailor, it is evident that he is an acute and intelligent observer in his own sphere; and many of the scenes he describes, for graphic accuracy and strength of colouring, would do no discredit even to the pen of Smollett. We look upon his book as giving the same kind of pictures of the naval service, that the memorials of the soldier of the 71st give of a private's military career. In both instances, we are presented with somewhat novel views of human life; and though these are occasionally more repulsive than could be wished, yet whatever is true to nature ought to be known, and, if honestly told, will be read with interest. For our own part, we hesitate not to say, that we have perused the whole of this volume with much entertainment, and, we think, some profit. Without farther comment, we subjoin as much as our space will allow us to extract, beginning with

A SAILOR'S YARN." Well, d'ye see, when I was on board the Barfleur in the West Ingees under old Tommy Harvey, we had a rum time of it; for he was a real tartar. He was none of your wishy-washy old women; for, if a man came before him once, he was as sure of his five dozen as he had his biscuit to crack for dinner, and you know that's always sure. Well, as I was saying, the old feller had a quare notion as how the ship's company was in a state of mutiny, thof there was not a more peaceabler set of men in the grand fleet at the time than we were. The masterat-arms was just, d'ye see, the two ends and the middle of a twice laid rotten strand of a bloody rascal, and then, d'ye

Twice laid is applied to ropes made of old yarns. The two ends and the middle of course comprise the whole. Strand means one of the plies of a rope.